Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Come next Tuesday night, we’ll get a resolution (let’s hope) to a great ongoing battle of 2012: not just the Presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, but the one between the pundits trying to analyze that race with their guts and a new breed of statistics gurus trying to forecast it with data.

In Election 2012 as seen by the pundits–political journalists on the trail, commentators in cable-news studios–the campaign is a jump ball. There’s a slight lead for Mitt Romney in national polls and slight leads for Barack Obama in swing-state polls, and no good way of predicting next Tuesday’s outcome beyond flipping a coin. ...

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So what should we be saying? Should we outlaw acts of god? Change the whole election date, pushing it back so they can vote?

The simple fact is more voters, a more engaged electorate, should mean a better democracy (And no I don't intend on writing a thesis on how and why). I want people to vote. I would love to have everyone vote. I am in favor of measures like early voting and even mail in voting to reduce the influence of natural disasters like Sandy impacting elections. But unlike the various GOP voter suppression laws and tactics there is not much I can do to legislate against storms.

Maybe Wallace felt that LeMay could carpet bomb all the Northern/Liberal cities and he would win.

"Keep yo bowels open and yo mouth shut"--the instructions Wallace's staff gave LeMay after he started talking about nuking places--has to be one of the top-5 political quotes of all time, up there in Edwin Edwards territory.

I meant everything governmental. And yes it is a simplistic summary of Libertarianism, but still far more correct than the "What Liberals really ..." bs normally put out on this thread - though I admit that is a really low bar to clear and I do apologize for not including my governmental qualifier.

No libertarian believes that. Nor would most or all of them want to live in a vacuum. What they want is to be free to associate with people and institutions of their choice, rather than be roped into a phony "we're all in this together" collective run by government.

And they can certainly have that philosophy codified in society, just not this society. Off you go lads, the heavy lifting of building your new utopia from scratch will do you good.

The simple fact is more voters, a more engaged electorate, should mean a better democracy (And no I don't intend on writing a thesis on how and why). I want people to vote. I would love to have everyone vote. I am in favor of measures like early voting and even mail in voting to reduce the influence of natural disasters like Sandy impacting elections. But unlike the various GOP voter suppression laws and tactics there is not much I can do to legislate against storms.

Well, unless you write that thesis, and it's very convincing, I'm not going to accept that it's true.

Dick Mell! When my friends say the TV show Boss is overdrawn, I have to use Mell as proof that it's actually too timid in showing how Chicago politics really works. The Mell/Blago storyline wouldn't fly past a first-year writing workshop.

My voting time was 20 minutes from the time I left the house to the time I returned (working from home is great!). Two people in line in front of me. This is all fairly typical of my past experience; I draw no conclusions about what this might imply about voter turnout or election results here (in Chicago) or anywhere else.

Why have we not heard a peep from our fellow vote-suppression liberals about how many people in the Hurricane Sandy states will have a tough time voting today if they are able to vote at all? Is it because these people are in solidly blue states? If they were in swing states, would our fellow liberals be whining that so many people realistically may not be able to vote today?

Near as I can tell, both the state and federal governments are doing everything possible to make voting as easy and accessible to as many people as possible... if you have proposals or ideas to make voting more accessible, I'd wholeheartedly support them. Hell, Long Island was hard hit and that's generally a red area of NY, isn't it?

You think you can legislate against storms? I kid. I'll write my thesis if you lay out yours for why a smaller less engaged electorate makes for a better democracy. Representative democracy works best when fewer people are represented?

At my polling place (DC), there were four lines to sign in - one for last names that start with A-C, one for D-H, one for I-M...and one for N-Z. The A-C line was non-existent, D-H had 2 or 3 people, I-M had about ten, and N-Z stretched all the way to the back of the gym.

It worked out fine for me as a D-H, but did it really not occur to anybody to divide things up a bit more evenly?

I just looked at a list of the 18,839 most common surnames in the 1990 Census, weighted by frequency. These 18,839 names account for 79.59% of the total US population. By this list, and ignoring population change since 1990 and the local surname environment, the ideal groups would be:

AARON-EATON
EAVES-LAKE
LAKES-RITTENHOUSE
RITTER-ZYLSTRA

A group including Hank Aaron and Adam Eaton is going to result in a hell of a lot of home runs! By letters, the ideal is:

Just like every society in the history of the world (unless I spot you Iceland for at most a few thousand people hundreds of years ago). So at what point does it become clear the philosophy is not going to happen?

just looked at a list of the 18,839 most common surnames in the 1990 Census, weighted by frequency. These 18,839 names account for 79.59% of the total US population....

Kurt's list:

A-C -- 20.46%
D-H -- 22.74%
I-M -- 20.98%
N-Z -- 35.82%

Don't be bringing your crazy stats into this discussion. For years, election experts have known that dividing up the names the way they do is the right way. Any spreadsheet-geek who thinks they can do it better is obviously too busy crunching the numbers instead of looking at the lines.

On Sandy, I thought NJ and NY responded as well as they could. I'd never heard of anything like the Gov's order in NY that anyone in an evac zone could vote at any precinct in the state by affidavit. That's about as accommodating as things can be without online voting.

A-C -- 20.46%
D-H -- 22.74%
I-M -- 20.98%
N-Z -- 35.82%

Ours was A-M, and it was at least 2-1 in line size. We were asking if this was a fluke, and these numbers illustrate it wasn't.

Who said anything about might? Maybe you libertarian fancy lads are getting a mite sensitive.

You're right in one respect, though. American society probably isn't ready for libertarianism.

No society is - that's why you have to go out and make your own, so you aren't encumbered by the corpse of failed non-libertarian philosophies. No government roads and infrastructure for your rugged types, you can codify your pay-to-play ethos every step of the way, from your constitution written on hand-pulped hemp paper to your giant monument of Ayn Rand standing majestically on your highest mountain.

Don't be bringing your crazy stats into this discussion. For year, election experts have known that dividing up the names the way they do is the right way. Any spreadsheet-geek who thinks they can do it better is obviously too busy crunching the numbers instead of looking at the line.

My friends tell me there are a lot of yard signs with the letter "A" on them, but almost none with the letter "Q" on them. I think the math geeks are going to have a long night.

Just like every society in the history of the world (unless I spot you Iceland for at most a few thousand people hundreds of years ago). So at what point does it become clear the philosophy is not going to happen?

So if it hasn't been tried yet, then it can't be a good idea? I guess no one should have ever bothered with democracy! Or for that matter, trying to solve any problem ever.

The lists in 2816 will have to be weighted differently in areas with different ethnic mixes. A heavily Chinese area (and they do exist, especially in California) might have W-Z as the whole last quartile. A heavily Vietnamese area is going to have a lot in the N-P range. And so on.

I just got sent a link to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education in which, among other things, Sam Wang offers to eat a "really big bug" if Romney carries Ohio. Of course, all along, Sam Wang has thought that Nate Silver was being too cautious.

In fact Nate and Wang wound up projecting identical EV outcomes (Obama by 303-235), at least according to the WaPo pundit survey posted yesterday evening.

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I dreamt last night that I was watching election returns and Romney had been called the winner because he'd won West Virginia and Tennessee. I actually woke up and had to remind myself that of course he's going to take West Virginia and Tennessee. Sheesh.

On Sunday night I dreamed I went into a small town general store with a rack display of current newspapers. Right on top there was an oversized Washington Evening Star** with a headline "OBAMA BEATS NIXON".

I then went to pay for the paper, and it turned out that Nixon himself was at the cash register, looking vaguely like his Oliphant cartoon....but when I said "What do you think, Dick?" (I guess he'd been there before and I already knew him), he just grunted and I woke up, vowing never to eat that dad-gummed cheese again.

The lists in 2816 will have to be weighted differently in areas with different ethnic mixes. A heavily Chinese area (and they do exist, especially in California) might have W-Z as the whole last quartile. A heavily Vietnamese area is going to have a lot in the N-P range. And so on.

That's what I called "the local surname environment". Realistically, if officials made a spreadsheet of the last names of all the voters registered in the local precinct, it would take about 30 seconds to figure out what the lines should be.

Okay, 2826 was my short and snappy answer. My more serious answer: there are two theories about democracy -- that it is about better policy, or about legitimacy. Since people are dumb¹ there's no reason more of them voting simply for the sake of voting will actually lead to better policy. And as for legitimacy, as long as they're not prevented from voting, the fact that they choose not to vote does not impact the legitimacy of the result. (In any case, I think the legitimacy is about whether the policies pursued are in accordance with natural right, not whether they're popular.)

(In my view, the healthiest society is one in which nobody votes because it doesn't matter -- not because we're choosing between Tweedledee and Tweedledum, to use Nader's formulation, but because the government plays so little role in society, and choices are made at the individual level.)

¹ People are dumb, but I just like writing that; the real issue is that they're ignorant. (Rationally so, I might add.) Adding in the votes of a lot of people who don't know anything about policy -- even if they're smart enough to understand it if they invested the time and energy to do so -- does not improve the policy.

Nate actually has Obama as an exceptionally slight favorite in Florida (50.3% chance of winning, 49.8 - 49.8 predicted vote breakdown), which would give Obama 332 EVs. Nate's "official" EV number is actually 313, incorporating all of his various probablities.

Dorothy Brown -- virtually every one of my friends who practice law in Chicago, including the liberals -- are not big fans...

The other Republican -- technically, more in name -- that I voted for is Lori Yokoyama for Cook County states attorney. I have no real issues with Anita Alvarez - and I expect her to win handily - but I've met Yokoyama a couple of times at various functions and discussed a few issues with her (the recent marijuana decriminalization for one) and came away impressed.

I'm actually relatively happy with alderman (44th ward, Tom Tunney) -- though, I used to be in Scott Waguespack's ward and I was a much bigger fan of his...

EDIT: Are you talking about Joseph Berrios? I know he's got a lot of family, but my condolences regardless -- poster children for machine corruption.

On Sandy, I thought NJ and NY responded as well as they could. I'd never heard of anything like the Gov's order in NY that anyone in an evac zone could vote at any precinct in the state by affidavit. That's about as accommodating as things can be without online voting.

Just like every society in the history of the world (unless I spot you Iceland for at most a few thousand people hundreds of years ago). So at what point does it become clear the philosophy is not going to happen?

So if it hasn't been tried yet, then it can't be a good idea?

That's what the Maoist apologists said when confronted with the gulags in the USSR, what Castroites said when confronted with mass starvation in China, what the North Vietnamese supporters said when confronted with Cuba's little iron curtain, etc....."There's nothing wrong with Communism. It's just never been properly tried."

Nitpicking! If Hispanic turnout breaks records in AZ enough to flip there state, there's almost certainly going to be enough unexepected Hispanic votes to flip Colorado. The demographic factors don't stop at the state lines. With Florida you could argue that Hispanic voters in Florida are very different from Hispanic voters in the Southwest, but that really doesn't apply to CO/AZ.

Big news in California! My mother voted AGAINST Pete Stark, who has been the representative there since I've been alive. Fortunately, because of California's new ballot laws, she was able to vote for another Dem. Let's hope the incumbent there goes down. He's been a great servant for the East Bay, but his time has long since past and it's time for some new blood.

Nate actually has Obama as an exceptionally slight favorite in Florida (50.3% chance of winning, 49.8 - 49.8 predicted vote breakdown), which would give Obama 332 EVs. Nate's "official" EV number is actually 313, incorporating all of his various probablities.

As I said, that 303-235 projection of both Nate and Wang was posted (and still is) on the Washington Post's pundit predictions page. I realize that it's been updated since then.

Dick Mell! When my friends say the TV show Boss is overdrawn, I have to use Mell as proof that it's actually too timid in showing how Chicago politics really works. The Mell/Blago storyline wouldn't fly past a first-year writing workshop.

I don't know if I'd use Dick Mell as an exemplar, but I'm in a little skin tag at the bottom of his ward. I would wager he's never set foot in my neighborhood. What sux is that the redistricting starts to happen in 2011, our alderman knew he was losing us and had no incentive to provide services, while the new guy takes his opportunity to spend all his menu money on the core of the ward. We get bubkes.

Yeah, "Everyone, I don't care who you vote for but please get out there and vote!" -- something the Apple Bee's founder said today, and something that is lighting up the twitter and facebook feeds -- is retarded. The people saying that are dumber than the people accused of being dumb for not voting.

Dorothy Brown -- virtually every one of my friends who practice law in Chicago, including the liberals -- are not big fans...

Just saw this, I voted against Brown, too. I've voted in every election (save a primary or two) since 1990, and this is only the third time I've voted for a Republican for any office. I hate what extremes Brown has driven me to.

The complete lack of good examples of Libertarian societies functioning in the real world is kind of a hint in my opinion.

It's more a function of people really liking to tell other people how to live.

In reality, you want bits of every philosophy hanging around government. I'd prefer one heavily leaning toward libertarianism but with enough socialism and fascism to keep the peace and defend against outsiders.

Dorothy Brown -- virtually every one of my friends who practice law in Chicago, including the liberals -- are not big fans...

The other Republican -- technically, more in name -- that I voted for is Lori Yokoyama for Cook County states attorney. I have no real issues with Anita Alvarez - and I expect her to win handily - but I've met Yokoyama a couple of times at various functions and discussed a few issues with her (the recent marijuana decriminalization for one) and came away impressed.

I'm actually relatively happy with alderman (44th ward, Tom Tunney) -- though, I used to be in Scott Waguespack's ward and I was a much bigger fan of his...

EDIT: Are you talking about Joseph Berrios? I know he's got a lot of family, but my condolences regardless -- poster children for machine corruption.

Toni's his daughter. Enormously underqualified-a "Board of Governors" degree from NEIU and working on her MBA from some for-profit degree mill Won her primary by a tiny margin (<100 votes) but the guy (an erstwhile Green) didn't want to contest the general, even though he likely would have won. Tunney's good-a bit of a developer tool, but that's inevitable in that ward.
They don't call her Dotty for nothing.

We're going to see a lot of people on the left flip out if Obama wins. Charges of racism, voter suppression, etc.

I'm genuinely confused here, not trying to be snarky. You really think lots of people on the left--whatever that is--will flip out and making wild accusations if Obama wins? What are these, Stein voters?

We're going to see a lot of people on the left flip out if Obama wins. Charges of racism, voter suppression, etc.

The saner among the rightwingers know that Obama is favored - or at best think it is even - so they won't go crazy with an Obama win.

Nice sleight of hand, to refer generically to "the left" in the first part (I assume by "wins" you meant "loses"), but limit the second part to "the saner" members of the right (as if there won't be significant numbers on the right who freak out at an Obama reelection).

I'm genuinely confused here, not trying to be snarky. You really think lots of people on the left--whatever that is--will flip out and making wild accusations if Obama wins? What are these, Stein voters?

We're going to see a lot of people on the left flip out if Obama wins. Charges of racism, voter suppression, etc.

The saner among the rightwingers know that Obama is favored - or at best think it is even - so they won't go crazy with an Obama win.

I like how you've implied that more liberals would flip out if Obama lost, when right-wing websites have been having precriminations involving charges of voter fraud since before the election even started.

The Tribune also reported in 2009 that Brown accepted cash gifts on her birthday and Christmas from her employees, a practice that several former employees described as being an unspoken requirement of their jobs. Brown later announced that she would no longer accept the gifts after questions over how she claimed the items on her tax returns arose

I don't want to live in a society where my vote is crucial. That kind of society scares me.

Hey it will still run with fewer folks voting, it just runs better if everyone votes.

Anyway, my thumnail thesis is ... people are not dumb despite doing dumb things (Calculus, going to the moon, e=mc2, and so on). And even when individuals are unwise, ignorant, or whatever then diversity of opinion and wisdom of the crowds helps ameliorate the dumb.

Even if I stipulated people are dumb though, I hope we would agree not everyone is dumb, and then the problem is determining who is "smart enough" to be allowed to vote is a task fraught with peril. Easier to just help everyone vote.

But yes, I think it would be ugly from the people on the left, the twitter feeds, the facebook feeds, the people in media and on tv, etc.

Ray, do you want the commentariat here to start linking to ugly pieces being written by the right and published today, even before the election is over? I'm sure they can happily supply many examples. My gf went to highschool in Texas and her FB wall is filled with ugly political messages about Obama from people on the right who would probably be horrified if you said they were extreme. This idea the the left is crazy but the right is measured and cool is kind of beneath your intelligence.

Yeah, "Everyone, I don't care who you vote for but please get out there and vote!" -- something the Apple Bee's founder said today, and something that is lighting up the twitter and facebook feeds -- is retarded. The people saying that are dumber than the people accused of being dumb for not voting.

By all accounts (the Chicago Reader's, for instance) the office she's run for the last 12 years is inept, inefficient, and expensive. There were also a lot of things that looked like either corruption or spectacularly bad judgment (she took cash gifts from employees, she had a weird slush fund generated by employees paying $2 for the privilege of wearing jeans to work). She's fully bought into the world of patronage and political hackery.

Finally, the clerk of court isn't really a partisan position. You're supposed to keep records and make them available. Either you're good at it or you're bad at it. She's bad at it. The other guy probably is too, but there's a chance he isn't.

Yes, you did -- though not explicitly. It's inherent in the collective enterprise and particularly inherent in the sneering, "We're collectivizing, whatcha gonna do about it???" meme that made up the backbone of your 2805.

I'll again stipulate that, yes, collectivists have their hands on the guns and are thereby able to fund and enforce their schemes. That's never been in controversy, though the collectivists sure like to repeat it.

Nitpicking! If Hispanic turnout breaks records in AZ enough to flip there state, there's almost certainly going to be enough unexepected Hispanic votes to flip Colorado. The demographic factors don't stop at the state lines. With Florida you could argue that Hispanic voters in Florida are very different from Hispanic voters in the Southwest, but that really doesn't apply to CO/AZ.

Hey now, it's not about being right, it's about being CRAZY right!

That said, I'm gutting on 2 things, that the Hispanic turnout in AZ will be more of a factor than in CO, specifically because AZ's unique position in the foreground of the anti-illegal immigrant movement (SB 1070, Arpaio, Russell Pearce) has specifically energized the Hispanic registration and turn-out in that state, above that of even neighboring states, and I'm not exactly sure how the Marijuana initiative is going to affect the voting at the top of the ballot.

It is pretty funny that Chrysler is giving the day of for its workers to vote and sending out emails calling out the Mitt Romney lie about moving jobs from the US to China. Maybe all lies all the time was not the best strategy.

We're going to see a lot of people on the left flip out if Romney wins. Charges of racism, voter suppression, etc.

absolutely true

The saner among the rightwingers know that Obama is favored - or at best think it is even - so they won't go crazy with an Obama win.

ignoring your use of "saner" in there- there have been giga-gallons of koolaid dispensed and imbibed this election cycle- the majority of people do not browse 538 or RCP or Pollster or even unskewed- and even if they did so would likely see little reason to take Nate's word over Karl Rove's- I honestly think that a good 40-50% of people think that Romney is either going to win or has a 50/50 shot at it- not all those people are right wingers, there are plenty of pessimistic lefties afterall, but you are gonna have plenty of people who will have read a headline recently ("Romentum," "Romney leading in new Poll" [Ras or Gallup]) and will go into tonight thinking "Romney is gonna win"

The less saner among the rightwingers? They are absolutely mortally sure that Obama is gonna lose...

Got it. I wish you were right, but--I say this with admiration not complaint--the relative intensity and risk-taking of the two party's mainstream operators in an undecided election was pretty well settled in 2000. Party leaders were demanding that Gore find paths to resolution before he even got started. Wusses. Republican Party leaders had devised all these talking points about the illegitimacy of EC winners who did not get the popular vote--which is what they expected--then reversed course brilliantly when they saw where the election was going. They played a tough hand as fiercely and well as you can play it. I'd like to think party Dems have grown up since then but I think the get-along caucus (what will Tom Friedman and David Brooks say) is still strong, sad to say.

I voted at about 7.45 this morning in Uptown. Took ten minutes. Would have taken less, but I had to wait for my ride to finish filling out his ballot.

Yeah but uptown is filled with young commie sympathizers who are too cool to vote. I voted in Roseville, inner suburb and bastion of mall shopping and neatly mowed lawns (my neighbor uses a drop cloth when he trims his hedges).